Athens, June 13, 2018
Photo: news.church.ua His Eminence Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens met recently with a hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, discussing the heated topic of the possibility of granting autocephaly to a united Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
There are presently two schismatic bodies operating in Ukraine that have appealed to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, along with President Petro Poroshenko and the Ukrainian parliament, to be granted autocephaly. The canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine, a self-ruling part of the Moscow Patriarchate, does not support the schismatic, Russophobic initiative.
His Bishop Grace Victor (Kotsaba) of Baryshivka took the opportunity to convey to the Greek primate the position of the Holy Synod of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church on “the granting of a tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” reports the site of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The hierarchical meeting took place as part of a pilgrimage of Ukrainian Orthodox youth to Greece.
Bp. Viktor gave Abp. Ieronymos the Ukrainian Synodal document in Greek translation, to which the latter replied, “We will study this issue carefully, but it is very difficult, so it requires a long time to study it.”
Read the Ukrainian Holy Synod’s full text here.
The Greek primate expressed the same at previous meetings with His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch.
Bp. Viktor also conveyed to Abp. Ieronymos the invitation of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine to send a representative of the Church of Greece to celebrate the upcoming 1030th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’.
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